Former CMS acting administrator Andy Slavitt talked about the health IT marketplace not addressing the real needs of patients and doctors during a fireside chat at HIMSS17 in Orlando last month.

Andy Slavitt, who served as the acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is signing on with the Bipartisan Policy Center as a senior adviser.

WIth the BPC, Slavitt will work toward his goal of drawing the two parties together – or, as he put it in an interview with the Washington Post: find "a policy platform that will connect the real world and Washington, D.C."

Slavitt’s position at CMS recently went to the GOP to fill, which it did with Seema Verma, a healthcare consultant known for her work on the Healthy Indiana state Medicaid reform plan.

At CMS, Slavitt helped put the pieces of the HealthCare.gov website back together after its bungled rollout.

Slavitt told the Post he is joining BPC as a senior adviser. Natalie Davis, who served as his senior adviser during his time at CMS, will serve as director of strategic engagement at the organization. Davis is based in Washington; Slavitt lives in Minneapolis.

BPC's Health Project has been led by former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Bill Frist, R-Tenn., which some might take as an indicator that, yes, Democrats and Republicans can get along.

Slavitt told the Post he plans to solicit the input of governors, medical leaders and state health officials. "There will hopefully come a time when policy people in D.C. look to voices like that. I don't think that time is today."

"It wasn't great for Democrats to be the only ones owning coverage reform,” he recalled. “Republicans are finding out it isn't great either. Everybody can own this together, because there will inevitably be challenges."

At HIMSS17 earlier this past February, Slavitt said in a fireside chat: “Repealing the ACA” (the Accountable Care Act, also known as Obamacare) “also means repealing the money. Everyone who built their lives around expansion are going to be very challenged.”